Welcome to Kevin, Montana

WELCOME

Kevin is located in North Central Montana, 20 miles south of the Canadian Border. We are situated in Toole County with Shelby (22 miles south of Kevin) as the county seat.

The Town was named after a Colonel Kevin, an official of the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company Railroad, also known at that time as the Turkey Track.  Records show that Kevin was established for a watering stop for trains that were transporting coal from Alberta, Canada to Great Falls, Montana. At that point in time, Kevin had a section house and a water tank for the trains.  A depot was later built for passengers and mail was sent out by railroad for many years. Although, we have many trains passing through Town today, they no longer stop in Kevin.

On March 14, 1922, oil was discovered at the Gordon Campbell well #1.  This well site can still be visited near the rimrock 4 miles north of Kevin.  Today, Kevin is the heart of the Kevin-Sunburst oilfield.  There is still much oil activity in the area.  A refinery was built in the 1920’s and was first call the Montana Giant.  Later it became the Big West Oil Company.  The refinery closed in 1977.

The Town of Kevin was founded in 1926.  An election to create an incorporated Town was held January 26, 1926, with 106 votes for and 3 votes against.  These votes were canvassed February 2, 1926 and a Town election was held on April 5, 1926.  Albert Goeddertz was the first elected mayor of Kevin, a position he held for 6 years.

At one time, due to the oil discovery, Kevin was quite a prosperous Montana Town, having its own bank and hospital. In the early 1970’s the oil refinery closed down putting several people out of a job.

Kevin Development Corporation was founded in 1977 when the refinery closed down.  The citizens of Kevin were greatly concerned about losing our major business.  They formed this group to work toward bringing in new businesses to this area. Although we have been thus far unable to bring in any major new businesses K.D.C. is still in existence.  K.D.C. and the citizens of Kevin have been responsible for buying the old railroad depot and moving it to a new location. It has been restored and is used today for community events and for daily meals served to our Senior Citizens.  They applied for and received funding to build a Senior Citizen/ Low income Housing complex. Kevin Development purchased several lots in town, built a park for the town and moved the playground equipment from the old school, to a better location downtown.  Currently K.D.C, along with several towns’ folk, is planting trees around the park and playground.

Today Kevin has a population of 179 persons with approximately 85 households.  School students are bussed 10 miles north to attend school in Sunburst (population 469). Today the business area consists of: 1 bar with a café, a post office, a barber shop, an accountant, and a meat cutting business. Kevin also has the Community/Senior Citizens Center. 

The Town of Kevin has a small City Hall employing one part-time Clerk/Treasurer and a Public Works person. We also have a Mayor/Council form of government.  Our Mayor and four council members are elected for 4 year terms.  Our council meetings are the second Wednesday of every month.

The Land around Kevin is flat and dry, very suitable for dry land grain farming and for raising cattle.  West of Kevin we have a rock formation called the Rim Rock.  It contains at least 2 buffalo jumps; the Indians would run the buffalo off the rims to kill them for food and pelts. There are many Indian Tepee Rings in this area.  These are rings of rock where the tribe pitched their tepees while passing through this area.  These “Rings” are protected by the Federal Government and cannot be disturbed.

Our Temperatures range from extremely cold in the winter, 10-20 below zero and lower with wind chill factor, to extremely hot in summer, 85-100 degrees above zero.  Annual precipitation is around 17 inches.  It has been exceptionally dry the past several years with the wind increasing each year causing the surrounding area to lose a lot of top soil.  The sun shines here almost every day even when it is -20 degrees, however, the wind also blows here almost daily.